The Bad Kitty Lounge by Michael Wiley Page B

said when you told him to stop fighting.”
    â€œDamn.”
    â€œHe’s a smart kid, Joe. He’ll learn whatever you teach him.”
    â€œThat’s what I’m afraid of.”
    â€œYeah, you should be.” Then, “You want to know about Judy Terrano?”
    â€œWhat did you find?”
    She went to the kitchen and came back with a small notebook. “Not much before 1989. In December ’82 she got arrested along with three other nuns during a march protesting Reagan’s policies in Nicaragua. This was liberation theology stuff—you know, the clergy on the front lines. The
Sun-Times
ran a photo of her and the other nuns carrying a pro-Sandinista banner and another of them in handcuffs. She got arrested twice more—in ’84 and ’85. Similar stuff.
    â€œIn ’89, she started the abstinence campaign, and the
Tribune
ran a short article on her in the religion pages. They said she was a well-known figure in civil rights battles and LatinAmerican social rights, though I don’t remember hearing her name back then. Six months later a
Sun-Times
editorial praised her for her plain speech about sex, though she’d apparently gotten into trouble with the archdiocese. By ’94, she’d gone more extreme and the papers started calling her the Virginity Nun. She collected a bunch of awards and a bunch of ridicule. She made big claims about the success of her programs. The people who wanted to believe them did, and the people who didn’t like her said she was full of it. No one doubted her commitment, though. She appeared at hundreds of school assemblies, church conferences, fund-raising banquets, and youth rallies.”
    â€œWhat about more recently?”
    She flipped the page in the notebook. “Three years ago she got in trouble again, or almost. The
Trib
ran an article that said the Diocesan Finance Council, which is the group that keeps an eye on church finances, was looking at her after a hundred ninety thousand dollars went missing at Holy Trinity. There was no follow-up in the paper, so I’m guessing the money turned up or the Council realized they’d made a mistake. Or,” she added, “the Church decided a cover-up was cheaper than bad publicity.”
    I considered that. “The room she was living in says she wasn’t skimming from the offering plates. She was the kind of woman who saved soap slivers so she could pack them together and make a new bar.”
    â€œYeah,” Lucinda said, “but she also hid a stack of twenties in her desk. That doesn’t look like a vow of poverty. What was she up to?”
    I shrugged. “Something with William DuBuclet. If he was paying her off, she probably knew one of his secrets. Maybe that secret was worth killing for.”
    â€œOkay, but what was it?”
    â€œDon’t know,” I said.
    â€œI also Googled Judy Terrano’s name,” Lucinda said. “I got eleven thousand hits, so I didn’t look too deep.”
    â€œDid you Google her name along with ‘Bad Kitty’?”
    She nodded. “Came up dry. What else did
you
come up with?”
    I went to the bedroom for the picture and placed it on the dining room table in front of her.
    â€œWho’s that?” she said.
    â€œJudy Terrano as a teenager.”
    â€œWow.” She ran a finger down the picture. “When I was eighteen, I wanted to look like that. Why the hell did she become a nun?”
    â€œIt’s not like good-looking girls never do.”
    â€œShe’s more than good-looking,” she said, and she held the picture close. “She’s a sex kitten. I bet a lot of guys fell in love with her.”
    â€œYeah,” I said.
    â€œHow about William DuBuclet?”
    â€œIn love with her? He’s thirty-five years older than she is.”
    â€œ
You’re
twenty-five years older than she was in this picture. Don’t you want to sleep with